Commercial Real Estate Implosion: 67 Percent Fall in Multifamily Starts, Ghost Buildings, $3 Trillion in Debt, 41 Percent Drop in CRE, and Collapse in Rents.
Driving along the highway at night, it is an eerie sight to look at some of the vacant buildings. The lights are on but the floors are empty awaiting an audience that will never come. Can it be that commercial real estate, with over $3 trillion outstanding be in worse shape than residential housing? In a short answer, yes. I’ll give you a few reasons but the most obvious is that unlike housing, there is rarely a price point where a commercial real estate development will make sense without a sustainable economy.
Top 10 States make up 55 Percent of United States GDP. 6 of the top 10 States have Unemployment Rates over 10 Percent.
It should come as no surprise that the economic production of each state is not evenly divided. There are many variables including population, industrial base, and regional specialties. With this deep recession it is important to get an understanding of how things are divided in the United States. It is easy to get into the mode of thinking everything is evenly divided or the recession is being felt equally across state lines. It is not. Some states like California had historical housing bubbles that saw real estate prices in some areas triple in 10 years only to come crashing down. Other areas like Texas had minor real estate appreciation. In the United States 10 states make up 55 percent of all GDP. The U.S. in 2008 had a GDP of $14.16 trillion and these states produced $7.89 trillion of that amount.
Credit Card Companies Evolving Revenue Streams: Penalty for Paying on Time, 79.9% Annual Fee, Rising Charge Offs. The New Credit Card Revenue Streams.
The love hate relationship with credit cards for many Americans is probably leaning more in the hate stage at the moment. Americans have over $2 trillion in revolving debt – $1 trillion of that is plastic. The average American has come to rely on credit cards as a form of supplemental income, like retirees come to rely on Social Security. You would assume with the Federal Reserve flooding banks with easy money that credit card terms would ease up on consumers. They have not. If anything, terms have gotten more onerous in the last year. Credit card companies are battling with increasing default rates and trying to figure out how to maximize profits. As it turns out, they now have to cannibalize their good customers for their horrid lending practices during the debt bubble.
U.S. Dollar Sendoff Stock Market Rally: Dow up 56% from Bottom in U.S. Dollars but up only 31% in Euros. How a Crashing Currency Hides Actual Trends. Over 40 Ounces of Gold Needed to Purchase Dow Index in 2000. Today 9.4 Ounces of Gold will buy the Dow Index. Oil is up 128% from March low.
Many Americans have a hard time wrapping their mind around a declining currency or the hidden tax that is inflation. The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve understands this and for decades has exploited this issue to slowly siphon off the buying power of the U.S. dollar. Openly they tell the public that they are for a strong dollar policy but every action they take is guided to slowly debasing the currency. Take for example the current stock market rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 56 percent from the March lows. A stunning rally only seen one other time in history and we would need to go back to the 1930s for that. Yet at the same time, we have seen a collapse in the U.S. dollar. That is why oil, even though demand is relatively the same, is now back near $80 a barrel.